


Pretense

by Ferrofluid



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 17:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7943341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferrofluid/pseuds/Ferrofluid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just after The Gift; The Buffybot is broken. Spike feels like he should be the one to gather it up and put it back away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretense

She's – _it's_ – dead. The robot.  
Right, maybe not – not that word; Wasn't ever a living thing to begin with, was it? Strange to call it dead, when it's not a battery or a –  
So, not dead, then. Broken.

Got its arm and leg and head off, lying in a twisty heap of metallic bits and imitation flesh. Really, _definitely_ broken.

Spike's not really sure why he took it again, laid it on the floor of his crypt in a careful pile.  
Feels right, though, the thought that he'd be the one to wind up with it again. It _is_ his.  
Doesn't really want it, never wants to see it move again... but it is his.

Feels like he should be the one to have taken it, to put it away.  
So he does.

He swigs from the bottle in his hand and decides he'll put in in a chest, lock it there so he won't have to look at the stupid thing again.  
It really was. Stupid, that is. Even when it worked correctly, it was inane, a frustrating imitation that had bored him just as much as it had stirred him up at first. Stupid, _ignorant –_

He really hates the thing.  
Crouching, he brushes the long fall of blonde hair out of its face. Smooths his thumb over the cheek, delicately hued with a blush. The texture's just a little off, always was. Hates it.

He takes another drink, gathers up the disconnected limbs. They're cool to the touch and bent in odd ways that they aren't really supposed to bend in. Still, it smells like her, because the clothes _were_ hers. Doesn't know who's they really are now, because the real one – the real girl, she's –  
The clothes are ruined, anyway. He tosses the parts into the wooden bin; Bends to retrieve a shoe that had fallen from the detached leg and tosses that in, too.

Then the torso, one arm and one leg still in the proper places on it, giving it a weird weight. He pulls it up, scoops it over his shoulder. He'd lifted it like that before, once, when he'd first gotten the thing, and there's suddenly the unwanted memory of that in his mind; The way it had clawed at his back, giving a gleeful shriek of protest - _"Ooh! Hands off, you sexy, evil fiend!"  
_  
He throws it into the chest harder than he means to, the lid slamming itself shut again.  
 _"Bloody idiot,_ " He hisses to the empty room.

Another deep pull from the bottle, and he paces with it for a moment. Not much left in it, but he's got another bottle around here somewhere, he thinks.

He returns for the last bit, the head. Looks strange, detached that way and all. The eyelids are closed, which is good, because he doesn't really want to feel like it's seeing him even if it's… broken.

"I'm sorry," He says to it. Not sure why, but it does feel like he should say _something_ before he closes it up in with the rest. Didn't mean to say that out loud, because really, the words seem foreign and inefficient and what does it matter?  
It's _dead_ and it _can't hear him_.

The whiskey sits wrong in his belly when he takes another sip, filling him up like fire – choking, almost –

He places the head in with the rest of the bits, carefully and quickly. Slams the lid shut, turns away and sinks down. He sets the whiskey aside long enough to fish in his pocket for a pack of smokes, and the key.

Lighting the cigarette and taking a drag, he lets out a slow inhale before he turns again to examine the latch. He grabs the lock from the floor, hooks it through. It closes with a sharp little click.

What to do with the key, then? He gazes at it, rested within his palm. Closes his fingers around it so that it doesn't fall when he takes another drag from his cigarette.  
He finds the bottle again with his other hand, and this sip sits a little better.

"I miss you, Buffy," He speaks again to the empty room. Not sure why – what does it matter to say it out loud?  
She's dead, and she can't hear him.


End file.
